When Apple entered the ebook market, prices rose. A recent court decision found Apple guilty of colluding with publishers, blaming the price hike, in part, on agency agreements and prohibiting their use. Building a model to compare these with traditional wholesale agreements, we identify a...

We show that the rise in ebook prices following Apple's entry into the market can be explained by Amazon's Kindle device losing its essential position. When consumers began accessing Amazon's ebooks using third-party devices, such as the iPad, Amazon's incentive to keep ebook prices low...

When Apple entered the ebook market, prices rose. A recent court decision found Apple guilty of colluding with publishers, blaming the price hike, in part, on agency agreements and prohibiting their use. Building a model to compare these with traditional wholesale agreements, we identify a...

Two panel opinions of the Seventh Circuit reached opposite conclusions in two massive antitrust cases during the past year, even though they purported to apply the same, now-infamous Twombly-Iqbal pleading standard, and even though the complaints in the two cases were very similar and the...

Licensing technology essential to a standard can present a hold-up problem. After designing new products incorporating a standard, a manufacturer could be confronted by an innovator asserting patent rights to essential technology. A damages remedy provided by antitrust or some other body of law...

In its early days antitrust policy was motivated largely by public fears regarding economic power, the excess influence owners of large businesses might exert over political and commercial markets. Over time, antitrust enforcement has come to focus exclusively on market power, the ability to...

Should the FTC have allowed Zillow to acquire its foremost rival, Trulia? It is increasingly well-accepted that digital platforms tend toward dominance in their immediately adjacent relevant-product markets. Google, for example, has long held a majority share of the markets for general-search...

This working paper forms part of South Africa's contributions to the BRICS Joint Working Group on Food and Agro-processing's overarching report on ‘The Global Food Value Chain and Competition Law and Policy in BRICS countries'. Constituted by the competition authorities of the BRICS countries,...

Platforms acting as sales channels for producers often charge users for access, via a subscription fee or a markup on hardware. We compare two common forms of vertical pricing agreement that platforms use with sellers: per-unit and proportional fees. In particular, we analyze the critical role...

The Rule of Reason, which has come to dominate modern antitrust law, allows defendants the opportunity to justify their conduct by demonstrating “procompetitive” effects. Seizing the opportunity, defendants have begun offering increasingly numerous and creative explanations for their...